Following the latest lockdown measures from the government, businesses across Oxford are closing. We are compiling a list of ones that are open or offering deliveries which you can find through our coronavirus info page

Jerusalem String Quartet

I want to start with something vaguely superficial but relevant (you will see why in a minute) and say that the Jerusalem String Quartet’s website is awesome and well worth a visit. The four instruments, cello, viola and first and second violins, are lounging on a red velvet sofa; dark brown, voluptuous beauties. Enter the site and they are picked up by their respective partners, they are eyed, held or simply perched next to their companions. The instruments take on a personality of their own. In concert too, the instruments come alive in the arms of their musicians and are played with such instinct and grace that the audience is held in raptures.

Mozart, Mendelssohn and Brahms were explored respectively in this particular concert. The musicians bounce off each other, trilling back and forth with dialogue-style musical phrases. They bring a great joy to their playing, whilst also managing to maintain an incredible level of focus, ending each movement with such silence and poise that you hold your breath for fear of disturbing the zen-like calm. The musicians, all of whom spent a significant part of their lives training in Jerusalem, work so seamlessly together that it feels as if they have worked as a quartet for many generations. They have actually been playing together since 1993.

The setting of Christ Church Cathedral too must be praised, not so much in itself (we wouldn’t want it getting too big for its boots) but in what it gave to the majesty of the music, letting it ring out around its lofty wooden beams and swirling stone.

The Jerusalem String Quartet really makes clear why so many composers, particularly from the late 18th Century onwards, wrote so prolifically for the string quartet. When performed well, a piece of quartet music is so effective because it attains a level of intimacy that pulls the listener in, with each instrument being heard at once distinctively and as an integral part of the whole. There is also a sense of delicacy to the music that an orchestra, for example, could never achieve, a vulnerability that is very beautiful.